You came here from the stack picker. Below is the current sign-up link for each platform it points to — plus a straight word on where each one earns its place. No fluff, no twelve-way comparison. Just the link and the verdict.
Pick the one the tool sent you to. Ignore the rest.
Every platform here is one I've either built on or would happily put a beginner on. The stamp on each card is my honest confidence level, not a sales rating — RUN IT means I reach for it without hesitating, SOLID means it's a safe call for the right job, and NICHE means it's brilliant at one narrow thing and wrong for everything else.
PRICES CHECKED SEPTEMBER 2026 — indicative only. Every platform reprices, and most charge more annually than the headline suggests once you add the plan you actually need. Check the current figure before you sign up.
For online stores — physical or digital products.
Two of my three businesses run on it. If you're taking money for products, this is the one I reach for first — the checkout, payments and tax just work, and I never think about them. You're renting simplicity, and for a store, it's worth every penny.
For polished, design-first sites and portfolios.
When the job is "look professional this week and stop fiddling", Squarespace wins. It's the one I'd point a non-technical friend at for a clean brochure or portfolio site — great templates, very little to learn, hard to make look bad.
For the easiest possible start on a simple site.
Fine for the person who wants something live this afternoon and will never open a settings menu again. Drag, drop, done. Just go in knowing it's a one-way door — moving off Wix later means a rebuild, not a migration.
For content, SEO and stores you genuinely own, long-term.
My oldest site has been on WordPress since 2003 and it's a working course marketplace, not a blog — so I'm not guessing when I say it can carry a real catalogue. For content and search you actually own, nothing else comes close. It's a platform you tend rather than set-and-forget, and you'll do more of the plumbing yourself than you would on Shopify. If you're playing the long game and want to own the whole thing, that's the trade worth making. (Link goes to a managed host so you skip the technical setup.)
For real design control without hand-coding.
The in-between I'd pick when a template builder feels too boxed-in but I don't want to hand-code a marketing site. It rewards the weekend you put into learning it — more power than the easy builders, steeper curve to match.
For a single one-page site, dirt cheap.
For one page — a link-in-bio, a coming-soon, a one-product pitch — it's the most honest value on the internet. Don't ask it to be more than one page. The moment you need a second, you've outgrown it.
For when the thing genuinely is software.
My joining-instructions app is a Next.js build on a managed host. It's the right call when what you're making is real software with a database — and overkill the second it isn't. Be honest about which one you're building. The framework's free; you're paying for hosting.
For small, static sites you own outright.
Every tool in this Library is a single self-contained HTML file. If what you're making is small, static and yours, hand-coding it and hosting it free is wildly underrated — I do it constantly. You trade convenience for total ownership and a near-zero bill.
